


if this is our last goodbye

by mindovermalfoy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Draco Malfoy In Love, Oneshot Draco malfoy, POV Draco Malfoy, Pining Draco Malfoy, draco malfoy love, draco oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:15:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28385376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindovermalfoy/pseuds/mindovermalfoy
Summary: If instincts are your future self asking you to make a different choice - I can count the moments I asked myself to save you.It's sixth year, and Draco Malfoy is living in hell. But at least he has you for company. If only he knew to count your goodbyes.Created while writing my Dramione epic, publishing in full in early 2021. Preview in author's notes.
Relationships: Blaise Zabini/Original Female Character(s), Draco Malfoy & Original Character(s), Draco Malfoy & Original Female Character(s), Draco Malfoy & Reader, Draco Malfoy/Original Female Character(s), Draco Malfoy/Reader, Draco Malfoy/You
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	if this is our last goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> Copyright: JK Rowling owns the character Draco Malfoy, all settings, and excerpts marked with an *
> 
> See the bottom notes for a snippet from my Dramione Epic launching in 2021

If instincts are your future self asking you to make a different choice —

I can spend a lifetime counting the moments I asked myself to save me.

.

June 29. Fifth year. I almost knocked you over as we meet in the threshold of my shared dorm. 

If Blaise's snores behind you didn't give it away, the dripping glow crossing your collarbones had. 

You may be Blaise's last conquest of the school year, but you're not the first I find exiting our dorm at this hour, and you wouldn't be the last. But you were the first to stop me in my tracks. Not because of the black silk only covering only your torso and thighs, but because of the fire in your eyes that shot daggers through mine. 

What part of me you stopped to consider, I'll never be sure. But you noticed... something, and I hated the way your frown mirrored my own intentions. 

It only took that small window of emotion to remind me that I wasn't my usual self. And I wasn't the only one to spot it.

You stumbled as you stepped aside. If I didn't know better, I would have followed the urge to watch you walk away. 

I didn't know that moment marked our first goodbye.

.

September 1. Sixth year. I'm the last to leave the train, and as I open the door to disembark we meet again.

As we startle each other you stumble off the train's step. If I didn't know better, I'd say my hand found your left arm to steady you, a simple reflex. But your eyes snap to meet mine and I see fire, bold and bright and daring me to continue. You find ice in mine, a normally unwavering shield that begins to drips away under your stare. 

I don't miss the immediate flex as you tug down your left sleeve. I know you don't miss me do the same to mine. 

We're frozen in realization we returned to Hogwarts with shared dreaded, horrendous intention. But my reason to return is mine alone to carry.

I mark our second goodbye with a scoff I hope scars your memory of me. 

.

September 3. Sixth year. The bodies Blaise brings to bed are no concern of mine, but you're back in the doorway as I return from my first failure. 

The repetitiveness of our encounters is infuriating, as if you are sent to mark the worst moments of life. 

I can't explain why I snatched your arm and ripped your robe, exposing our shared fate. I can explain why you wiped the smirk off my face with a smack. 

"You can't snog the Mark away," I whisper, leaning in to your ear. "But you know your way back if you'd like to keep trying." 

"You're asking to be killed," You challenge, leaning away to stare at me. 

My nonchalant shrug doesn't match the waver in my voice. "I came here with a death sentence. I'm a dead man walking."

If I didn't know better, I would consider your third stumble out of the dorm a mark of our third goodbye. 

.

September 21. Sixth year. Blaise has filled your absence with a series of conquests I don't care to consider. 

If I didn't know better, I would say I'd lost track of the days since you last stumbled through our threshold —

18 —

And claim I wasn't anticipating our next... encounter.

I've known you for years. I realize I don't know you at all.

You take breakfast as close as you can to the Great Hall entry. You run late to every moment I can count, and I count them as I notice you skid in late to potions, charms, transfiguration —

But never care of magical creatures. The most infuriating time-suck of them all. While I thank Salazar this is the last year I'll waste my time here, I can't help but notice that you thrive amongst them. 

It seems I'm the last to notice. You've clearly spent six years bridging the gap between green and yellow as you laugh and care alongside the Puffs. I watch from the back of the pasture, striving to do the minimum to pass. 

You're too distracted to notice your left sleeve rip on your sheers. There's mere moments to disguise the truth from your peers working alongside you. 

If I didn't know better, I would say you set a charm on your robe to magically repair itself. But you don't miss my wand return up my own sleeve as you clutch at your magically-repaired robe, you secret safely covered as if nothing happened.

The chaos of class fell mute as our eyes meet from across the room. Again your walls fall and my ice meets your fire. If I didn't know better, I'd say that we were of one mind... but it's not the marks that are binding us. 

I sweep out of the lesson before you can approach, foregoing a fourth goodbye.

.

October 12. Sixth year. Your testament to your Slytherin nature is your ability to web a circle of allies from every corner of the school.

You cross in my warpath in the form of your colleague, our classmate, Katie Bell. 

It's an ungodly hour when you enter through the portrait hole and expose me pacing alone in the common room. I stop at your intrusion, knowing I've been caught at my most vulnerable.

We both know I'm the one who fucked this up. Your mocking smile proves it.

I don't remember what came first: your rolling eyes or elongated sigh, but any debate around semantics are erased by the way you gracelessly flop on the couch in front of the fire and throw your head back. 

"They don't know it was you," you release my immediate anxiety.

"How —"

"Don't ask," You close your eyes as if you're bored. 

"I didn't ask —"

"Consider it a returned favour," Your arms fold across your chest. 

"What are you playing at?" I can't help but sit beside you, a new anxiety forming in my mind that your mission may be as sinister as mine. 

You smirk, shake your head, and rise to leave me alone with one ringing thought to mark our fifth goodbye:

"War is a chess game, and the Queen's only job is to protect the King." 

.

October 31. Sixth year. The parties rage on in the common rooms. No one notices when I slip away. 

I've been slipping for some time now. Attendance and appearances in the Great Hall. The command my presence holds in the common room. The attention I draw in the corridors.

This is the way I want it. I've convinced myself if I slip into the shadows, I'll become one myself. Then no one will notice when I disappear.

But if light causes shadows to stand taller then you're the goddamn sun. Of course you're waiting at the end of the corridor when I leave another failed attempt, half an apple in my hand.

If I didn't know better, I'd tell you that by this hour, Fireball shouldn't be the only thing you're spilling in Zabini's bed. 

You move in slow motion towards me, your steps shooting shivers down my spine. My breath can't help but hitch when you finally graze your lips from my jaw to my left ear. 

"What's died will stay dead if you don't show it life," you tell me, taking the half-apple from my hand and throwing it on the floor.

You leave my mind spinning as you slink away from me. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were foreshadowing my fate. But before I can click the pieces together, I find myself alone in the corridor once more.

Your riddle is our sixth goodbye.

.

November 3. Sixth year. 

"Are you stalking me?" 

I can't help the upward curl of my lips at your choice words. I come across you reading on a ledge, no one but a lone crow in the courtyard keeping you company. If I didn't know better, I'd say I ignore the way you glisten even in November fog. 

"I should be the one asking you that after the other night," I hover over you, taking my chance to reassert my dominance after you stripped me of common sense in the corridor. 

You simply roll your eyes. Your attempt to ignore me is cute, but your eyes stopped skimming the pages long ago. 

"You have yet to take me up on my offer," I flip my wand in my hand and grasp it at the base. "And you seem to have abandoned Zabini —"

"Blaise has a laundry list of conquests," You roll your eyes and stand, but I prevent you from stepping around me. 

"Stalking is a harsh word to use on a friend," I return to your earlier accusation. If I didn't know better, I'd mistake you for a Gryffindor by the blaze of fury that flashes your face. I don't admit I've missed meeting those firey eyes. 

"We're not friends," You try again to step around me, and I take the opportunity to invade your personal space. 

My eyes are locked on yours, and yet your fire still rages against my ice. I can't help but smile: 

There's nothing I love more than friction. 

"Is that so? I thought our marks made quite the friendship bracelets —"

"Don't —"

"Somehow you've found out where I spend my time," I lower my voice to emphasize the lack of space between us. "If you continue to find yourself crossing my path, I guarantee you will be part of my destruction." 

You surprise me with a smirk so familiar I'd swear we were carved of the same stone. 

"It's a good thing we're friends, then," You successful side-step me, and the flames you leave pressed to my ear send scorching waves down the base of my neck. 

"I'm already lying amongst your rubble." 

The destruction you seek haunts my memories our seventh goodbye. 

.

December 20. Sixth year.

I claim to be gatecrashing the party and can somehow hear your smirk from the across the room. The red silk you're draped in leaves little to the imagination, the best distraction to the long sleeves you choose to wear to a warm venue. I'm the only one who notices the meaning behind your choice. 

Snaps bails me out and we argue in the corridor. If being outed at the party wasn't torment enough, I have to remind Snape I'm living in hell. 

I was chosen, remember? Satan picked me himself.

I make my way back to the common room, knowing I've lost the opportunity to make an attempt tonight. But even though the clock strikes an early hour I return to find the dungeons abandoned —

Save my own demon draped in red.

The fire you're standing before does nothing to warm your exposed back. As you turn your head to face me, once again I'm certain —

I'm in hell. Which is famous for it's company. 

"Blaise won't return from the party for another few hours," you muse, licking your bottom lip. 

"Who fucking cares," I manage to get out before I trap your bloody red lips in mine. 

Hands have never felt so good tugging at my hair. I know my way back to the dorm, and this time I'm the one stumbling through the threshold. 

Blaise's return marks our eight goodbye. 

.

December 25. Sixth year.

You give me the only Christmas gift I wish to receive this year: a love bird. 

An answer to the riddle you left me with weeks ago. 

The cabinet claims the life as its own, and finally stirs from its broken slumber. Progress.

If I didn't know better, I'd stop to consider the irony of the lone bird I've left behind. But there's no room for remorse in war, even for the lovers left behind. 

I write to my father to advance to the next stage of the plan, and ignore the swimming feeling of dread in my gut. There's no turning back when I leave the owlery empty handed. 

But you're once again waiting by the fire for my return, and I find company in the misery of my success. We sit alone and say nothing for... minutes? hours? 

The only thing I know for certain comes to me when you press your lips to mine: you've built a home in the rubble of my destruction. And from this point on, we can blaze the warpath together.

Our ninth goodbye is said together, to the lives we once knew. There's no turning back or escaping now, yet there is solace in our entwined hands, lips and limbs as we seal our fate together.

If I didn't know better, I'd say this was your intention this entire time. 

.

June 30. Sixth year. 

"You don't understand —"*

You're the only person who ever has.

"I was chosen."*

I'd choose you everyday. 

"I have to do this."*

Loving you is the only choice I'm allowed in the fires of our hell. 

Snape bails me out and we flee without you.

I promise you it's not goodbye.

.

May 2. Seventh year. 

The sun is rising over the ashes of the old world. Through the smoke of the ruins I see you, covered in ashes and blood of all types. 

If I didn't know better, I would say I found you lying amidst the rubble. But you were always part of it, whether you deserved to be or not. 

I lay with you in the rubble and beg any God listening to fill your lungs with air. As my ice yearns for your fire I realize you fulfilled the reason why you returned to Hogwarts in sixth year:

You were always my Queen, and you did your job thanklessly. 

The war is over, and there is a whole life ahead I must walk with you. I've found the tenth circle, and there is no company here.

I find solace in the fact that you've found an eternity of time to exist within. I hope wherever you are, there are new creatures for you to care for. 

I can't lay in the rubble forever, and as I piece myself together and attempt to let you go, I remember your riddle:

"What's died will stay dead if you don't show it life."

I make one final promise to you, to live life far from the rubble. For both of us. 

I never say goodbye.

**Author's Note:**

> Coming Early 2021: 8th year Dramione.
> 
> He froze at her words, and she must have sensed the change in his demeanor as she turned to face him. The smile brushed off her face as she recognized she had made a misjudgement. 
> 
> "What?" She asked. He ran a hand over his face before shoving his hands into his pockets. 
> 
> "It's mine," he said. When she didn't immediately follow him, he found his strength and shared his secret, with a deep hatred rooted in his tone. "I am the Master of Malfoy Manor."
> 
> "I didn't —" As strong as her voice was there was a waver in her step. " — know the Manor was yours."
> 
> "Of course it is," He tried to bite back his immediate irritation at discussing the matter. "I am the heir, am I not? My father was forced to enchant it to me as part of his imprisonment."
> 
> He studied her for a moment, and saw her fear was gone, replaced by something else entirely. "Is that what you want?" She asked, extending a fresh cup of coffee to him. 
> 
> He wouldn't let her turn this into an examination of his feelings regarding the Manor, of which there were many. He focussed his attention to the bitterness of the warm drink in his mouth — perhaps there was a place for coffee in his routine after all. 
> 
> "Of course it's not," he spat the words, retreating back to the desk. "After all I've told you, I'd figured you know I bloody hate that place."
> 
> "Then why take it?" She matched his pace, reaching his chair before he could pull it out to sit. 
> 
> He let his breath give away his irritation, taking a step back to examine her. "I didn't take it," he explained bitterly. "The Manor isn't just a place."
> 
> Her eyebrows furrowed and he continued. "The enchantments run centuries deep," he explained. "Hundreds of years of Dark activities happened within the walls, and the walls remember it all."
> 
> "So..." she clicked her tongue, trying to understand. "The Manor is... alive?"
> 
> "As much as a portrait is," he nodded. "Only the Master can extract the memories."
> 
> "And that's what you've been doing," she sighed. "The nights you meet Kingsley?"
> 
> He nodded, and she finally moved away from his chair. He collapsed into it, accidently slamming his coffee down on the table. Not that she noticed. She was slowly approaching her side of the table, considering his exhaustion as sank into her chair across from home. 
> 
> "You can extract memories at that volume? And frequency?"
> 
> He nodded, greedily sipping from his mug. He closed his eyes, pressing his collective exhaustion to the back of his mind. 
> 
> "And it doesn't take a toll on you?"
> 
> Twinge. 
> 
> "At first it did," he admitted. "But there's a numbness to the pain that's easy to accept once you get through the first couple hundred. Now it settles like a migraine." 
> 
> He opened his eyes and found hers lost in the wall behind him. He didn't have to pry to know she was considering her own difficulties with the art, but he didn't press. 
> 
> "Why put yourself through it?" She settled on the question.
> 
> He drummed a finger against his mug, considering. "If there's any chance of reparations," he sighed. "There can't be any more secrets."
> 
> "What is Kingsley offering you in exchange for it all?" She asked. 
> 
> Her face softened as he answered with a pointed look to the calendar: the impending Malfoy trials. A soft oh escaped her lips. 
> 
> "I'm the first in the entire bloodline to betray the dynasty," he offered instead. 
> 
> "Your Father must be furious," she mused. 
> 
> "I don't care," he confirmed with a sip. "Let him rot in Azkaban. This is all his doing anyway. The Mark," he glanced down at his arm, anger bubbling over. "My mission. All of it is because of him."
> 
> They were silent, lost in their own drinks and memories when she asked him a question he would have never dreamed to hear.
> 
> "What can I do?" She asked. 
> 
> Something stirred in him. Her tone was eerily calm, her lioness ready to fight. He shook his head. "I'm out of time. Unless you have some miraculous memory of me aiding Potter --"
> 
> "I do," she said. His head snapped up to look at her, and he found a oddly brave expression on her face. She stared at him for a moment before unveiling her truth: "The night at the Manor.”


End file.
